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Updated: June 18, 2025
Two like them have the ogee moulding, and at the sides a rounded moulding carried on corbels and finished above the window with a carved finial. The capitals are again carved with leaves, but the horseshoe arches have no cusps, and the mouldings, like the capitals, are entirely Gothic; the union between the two styles, Gothic and Arab, was already becoming closer.
But the effect is to reduce its size and shape to a narrow ridge, making an acute angle with the grass-stem, hardly distinguishable in shape and colour from the seed-heads on thousands of other stems around. The butterfly also sleeps on the top of the stem, which increases its likeness to the natural finial of the grass.
There are also slight points of difference in the clerestory windows, showing the transitional character of those in the four eastern bays. The windows of the aisle are delicately moulded with capitals to their shafts, and are ornamented with a crocketed gable, ogee-shaped and topped with a prominent finial rising just above the battlements of the aisle.
In the afternoon we visited the great Arakan Pagoda, a shrine which pilgrims of the Buddhist faith frequent from all over the world. It is built in the form of a square tower, rising in a series of terraces, growing smaller and ending in a finial at the summit. There are also battlements with finials capping the top.
The finial before the stall of the Canon in Residence has a griffin attached to it, and that in front of the Dean's stall a lion. Before both these stalls the ends of the two tiers of desks are richly carved.
The twisted mouldings are carried up beyond the capitals to form a huge trefoil turning up at the top to a large and rather clumsy finial.
Like the door at Santarem the whole would be sprawling and ill-composed but that here the white-wash of the wall comes down only to the arms of the cross, so as to give it built as it is of grey limestone a simple square outline, broken only by the upper arm and finial of the cross. The heads of the two windows, one on either side of the door, are half-irregular octagons with convex sides.
The only other part of the church which calls for notice is the bell-tower which stands at the north end of a very thick wall separating the sacristy from the cloister; it is now an octagon springing strangely from the square below, with a rich parapet, inside which stands a tall spire; this spire, which has a sort of coronet rather more than half-way up, consists of eight massive crocketed ribs ending in a huge finial, and with the space between filled in with very fine pierced work.
In later examples this distance between the gables and the wall was considerably reduced, until at last the barge-boards were flush with the wall. The joists of the first floor project from under a finely carved string-course, and the end of each joist has a carved finial.
Since the sun was just beginning to gild the lofty finial on the dome of the Capitol opposite, there was no one stirring as yet in the adjoining rooms of the suite, and the streets were silent save for the chanting cries of the newsboys. Slipping out of bed, Blount crossed to the window and threw it open.
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